Email a copy of "UN Renews Peacekeeping Mandate at Israel-Syria Border in Golan Heights" to a friend

A UNDOF base near the Syrian-Israeli border in the Golan Heights. The U.N. Security Council decided to renew the mandate to deploy the UNDOF until the end of the year. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

JNS.org – Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon praised the U.N. Security Council’s decision on Wednesday to renew the mandate to deploy the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) in the Golan Heights region until the end of the year.

“UNDOF manning these positions is in Israel’s interest,” said Danon.

“The UNDOF peacekeepers play an important role, and Israel is interested in them returning to the buffer zone in the quickest and safest way possible,” he added.

The UNDOF peacekeeping force was created after the 1973 Yom Kippur War to monitor the Israel-Syria border. The mandate has been renewed every six months since that time, but UNDOF stations were abandoned in 2014 when Islamic terrorists fighting in the Syrian civil war captured UNDOF peacekeepers and held them hostage.

Additionally, the Security Council condemned the fighting that continues on the border and called “on all parties to the Syrian domestic conflict to cease military actions in the UNDOF area of operations and to respect international humanitarian law.”